Winning the War - Cracking the Code

If you want to click, flip in your Bible, we're going to get to Ephesians 6 one last time.

This is the final week of our winning the war series.

We have been going through the armor of God.

And I'm so excited to see what God has done as He's helping us grow and understand that victory is ours now.

And he's given us the perfect recipe and the perfect plan for how we can live that out.

And so today, today's sermon is entitled Cracking the Code.

Any of you like me, where you grew up in an era where there was secret codes.

Decoder rings that you used to get in the cereal boxes.

Like I used to skip all the cereal and pour it out just so I could get to the price.

Anybody else there with me?

And then put it back.

So my brother and sister had no idea it was in there, and they just kept eating, thinking they're going to find it one day.

They had these decoder rings, these ways you could write a secret code so nobody had to find out what it was, right?

There's these moments, or maybe you guys had those experiences with invisible ink.

That was the coolest ever, man.

You could write a message, hold it up to a light, and then all of a sudden, bam, this message was decoded.

This communication was happening that you could find out, and somebody else would have no idea.

If we're honest, sometimes communication just feels that way.

If you have a teenager in today's world, communication feels really weird.

I don't think they speak English anymore.

They use words to me that like vibe and sus and glow up and sigma and no cap and low-key.

And I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about.

I'm afraid to use those words because I don't know what they mean, and I might use them in a wrong way.

Anyone have a teenager and you're like, I don't know what language you're speaking here.

Yes.

I mean, it's like, come on, like what happened to just English, man?

I mean, can we just go back?

Anyone married and you're learning that actually trying to communicate in a marriage feels a little bit cryptic sometimes too.

Yeah.

Wives are like, man, I've tried to make it really plain by putting some hints out, but let me just tell you, husbands don't pick up hints very well.

I'm just gonna be honest, okay?

There are moments where we try to drop those things and we miss those things.

There's moments, maybe you're like me when I've had a conversation with my wife, and I feel like I told you about that.

She's like, no, you didn't.

It's where I wish we could have those commercials with the red flags where we could go back and find the video footage.

Except the problem is I think I would throw the red flag and then regret it because the video footage would show she was right and I was wrong.

And so I don't know how well that would work in my favor.

But there's these moments where communication can feel like such a code to crack.

And so today we're going to look at this idea of prayer.

Because if we can be honest, if we talk about what it means to pray and to have a conversation with Jesus, sometimes it feels like it's a little bit of a cryptic message.

Like, how do I really do this?

If you've ever wondered, man, how do I really pray and what does this look like?

And how do we crack this code to do that?

That's what today's message is all built around.

We've gone through very different pieces of the armor.

And the final piece here, Paul is talking about prayer.

And I believe he's trying to help us decode what it means to have communication with God on a consistent basis.

And so here we are, prayer is a posture of our life, not just words we say.

Sometimes when we talk about having people pray, I don't know about you, but there are these moments where, like, if our kids would sit down at dinner and you would have your kids pray, right?

It was usually something like, God bless this meat, let's eat.

Yeah.

Some of you, that's still how you pray, like that's okay.

Like, keep it up.

One day you'll get there.

Like, it's no, I'm just joking.

I'm not picking on you.

But prayer is more than the words we use, it's a posture of our life.

And so many times, like we read the Lord's Prayer and we think, man, this is just a thing I'm supposed to repeat.

Listen, prayer is not just empty words we repeat, it's a posture of our life, it's a posture of our heart.

And as we do these things, God begins to interact in our life.

It's why we talk about this from the get-go as you walk in, you see it on banners, you see it on everything we do.

We want to be a place that's leading generations to experience Jesus.

Jesus is not somebody to be talked about, Jesus is somebody to be experienced.

And those that experienced him had transformed lives, and that's what we want for you.

And so, Ephesians 6, starting in verse 10, for a final time we've added to this chunk as we go.

Here we go.

A final word.

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on all of God's armor.

Everybody say all.

Sometimes we want to grab a piece.

Paul said, Grab it all.

Put on all God's armor so you'll be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil.

See why we need all the armor?

He's trying to help us win.

For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places.

Therefore, put on every piece, there we go again, of God's armor, so you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil.

Then after the battle, you will be standing firm.

Stand your ground, then, putting on the belt of truth we talked about, and the body armor of God's righteousness, the shoes, put on the piece that comes from the good news, so you'll be fully prepared.

In addition to all these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil, put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And here we hit verse 18.

Notice how many times God uses this word pray.

Pray in the spirit at all times and on every occasion.

Stay alert and persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere and pray for me to ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mystery, mysterious plan, that the good news is for Jews and Gentiles alike.

I am in chains now, still preaching this message as God's ambassador.

So pray that I keep speaking boldly for him as I should.

Three times or in three scriptures, five times, Paul talked about praying.

If something is emphasized that many times that close together, there's a reason.

You guys know it as parents, right?

Like if I've asked you to clean your room and you're not getting it, and I emphasize it for my kids two or three more times, I wasn't just doing it because I thought it was fun to say, right?

There's an emphasis that I'm trying to get to.

And Paul is trying to help us understand that as we talk about all the pieces of God's armor, may and be the exclamation point to all of this is understanding how to develop a prayer life in conversation with Jesus.

And we're gonna learn it's not words, it's a posture of the heart.

And so I want us just to break down these few scriptures and talk about the way Paul's trying to teach us how to posture ourselves in a way that we can experience Jesus through prayer.

One, he says, pray in the spirit, he talks about the fact that God's power is at work inside of us, helping us do what we can't do on our own.

That the power of the Holy Spirit exists.

He said from the get-go to make us witnesses.

And we've talked about the power of the spirit, the sword of the spirit, how God is trying to interact with us today, and he empowers us through the power of his Holy Spirit to live for him.

And so the invitation, what he would say, to pray in the spirit is nothing more than going back what he said in verse 10.

He said, Be strong in the power of the Lord.

You know how you can be strong in the power of the Lord is to understand that he has given us his spirit inside of each one of us to equip us.

And so part of it is learning how to pray and trust the Holy Spirit as we pray.

And listen, there's a big whole teaching here that I could not break down in this one sermon unless y'all want to hang around for another hour or two.

And I don't think I'm that good.

And I think you'll get too hungry.

And so, and football season is today, right?

So go, Chiefs.

May the power of the Lord equip Patrick Mahomes' knees and his offensive line.

Amen.

Let's go.

And so we have to understand that the power of God's spirit equips us to do what we do in life that is still working in us for everything that we face.

And so prayer is a posture of dependence on the Lord.

I don't know if you've figured this out yet, but for many of us, if I asked you, who are you depending on the most in your life?

If I could be honest as your pastor, you know who I would be tempted to say?

Jason.

I know who I should say.

I know the Sunday school answer would be Jesus.

Right?

Every time somebody asked you, just said, even if you didn't know, it's Jesus.

But the reality is, for most of us, we're depending on me first.

And then when I run out of me, when I reach the end of me, I'm suddenly ready to have a conversation with God because I realize I need his help.

And so all Paul is trying to do is to short circuit that experience for us and get us just to depend on him in the front half instead of wait till we get to the back half.

Again, somebody asked me the other day, and we were having a conversation about being around people and watching them and how they learn from mistakes.

Here's what usually happens for me.

Like sometimes people learn from their mistakes, like falling out of the tree.

I hit a branch or two, but then I catch myself and I learn my lesson.

Some people hit every branch on the way down and land on the ground, and then they finally learn their lesson.

You don't have to raise your hand if that's you.

My favorite way to learn is to watch somebody else fall out of the tree and learn from their lesson.

That's what Paul's trying to do here.

You can keep trying to do this on your own, smack some of the branches or hit the ground on the way down, then finally ask God to help you, or you could just go to him in the first place and say, falling out of the tree.

Paul's trying to teach us part of prayer is just posturing ourselves in a place where we're dependent on him to come move in and through us.

And so if you're taking notes, man, I would write that down.

I would encourage you to pull out your phone.

If you're not a note taker, this might be one of those because so much of my life is spent around learning to continually ask the Holy Spirit to help me.

There are many times where my prayers are as simple as I ask the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom.

There are things that I face, believe it or not, that they don't prepare you for in Bible college.

And so I man, Holy Spirit, give me wisdom.

There are things that I face in life where I ask the Holy Spirit to give me discernment and just help me understand what's happening here because I don't see the big picture.

There are moments where people frustrate me, believe it or not.

I get frustrated at times too with people.

And man, I'm like, Holy Spirit, help me love this person the way that you do.

Help me see past what I'm experiencing.

Moments where time after time I'm trying to slowly learn to just start on the front side with saying, Holy Spirit, help me, instead of waiting until I've smacked a few chi branches, tree branches, and then ask him for help.

Let's keep going.

Here's the next thing Paul says at all times.

Here's the reality that prayer, if you want to have a posture of prayer that works, prayer is our first response, not our last resort.

I'll say that one more time so you have time to type it in your phone or take a picture on the screen.

Prayer is our first response, not our last resort.

But again, if most of us would just be honest, myself included, I wait till I've exhausted almost every other possible option.

And then I finally go to God and say, I need your help.

Paul is trying to help us to learn the posture from the get-go.

He said to pray at all times, every occasion.

If you don't know what that means in the Greek, all means all.

Sometimes it's learning that when we sin, the best prayer you can pray, God, I messed up, help me.

But so many times when we sin, we just want to run from God and we forget that prayer should be our first response, not our last resort.

And the invitation of messing up when we sin is just to come back to Jesus and say, God, I messed up, I need your help.

It should be the first response that we react to in our life.

But we fight our own problems, we struggle in our own wisdom, we try every resort possible, and when we run out of strength and we run out of resources, we begin to finally come to prayer.

But what would happen if we would start with prayer to begin with?

What would happen if right out of the gate we would just start with prayer?

I think what would happen is God could lead us in a place of victory a whole lot faster because we're posturing ourselves before him and giving him the invitation to come work in our life.

The beauty of prayer is it's acknowledging to God, I need you.

I'm not good enough to figure this out, and even if I thought I was, I'm not good enough to see everything you see, and so I'm just gonna come to you in the first place and say, Father, lead me because I need you.

Here's one thing I've learned the older I get, and the longer I follow Jesus.

Some of you can be like, Don't tell me this.

The longer I follow Jesus, the more I realize the less I know.

I remember when I was 18 years old, I knew everything.

You parents that are laughing, you had teenagers right now that are about 18 years old, they got all the answers.

46 now, and I'm realizing I don't know anything.

And so I'm a whole lot faster to ask God to help me because I realize I don't have all the answers.

And even the ones that I thought I might have, I realize I don't have the point of view and perspective that God has.

So even if it looks good to me, God may say, hey, that's not for you.

And I need you to trust my perspective because I'm looking at it from a much different place than you are.

I told our team as we huddled up today, one of the things that a pastor used to tell me all the time is sometimes it's good to not get what you want.

We tell our kids that all the time, but the truth is still there for us as adults following Jesus too.

Garth Brooks, I believe, said at best, sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers, right?

We knew that person as an eighth grader, we were gonna marry, man.

And I pray, God, let that be the one.

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.

Sometimes God telling you no is not because he's being mean to you, it's actually because he has his best plan for you.

Because he has a perspective you don't have.

He's already looking at it.

You know how God knows what's coming?

Because he's already standing in the future, he's already seen it.

You don't know how God knows the best for you?

Because he's already there.

And so he's inviting us.

Man, go to him in the first place.

Trust him as we go.

There are moments where I'm trying to learn to just pray at all times.

When I make my wife mad or I hurt her, instead of responding in that moment, I'm trying to learn to pray.

God help me.

You want a marriage secret right there?

Pray that prayer before you open your mouth.

Could solve a lot of marriage problems.

Man, when my kids are in a place where they're struggling, I'm learning as a parent, man, I pray.

My son gets married next Monday, September 21st.

It's crazy.

I don't know how I feel about that, except give me some grandkids at this point.

Now, if I'm gonna do this, we might as well get to enjoy them.

But let me tell you something.

We've been praying for our son's wife since he was a little baby.

Why?

Because, man, I'm sowing seeds of prayer for something I don't understand that God would steer and direct.

My daughter doesn't have a man in her life, but whenever there's one that shows up that's worthy to date her, the bar's really high.

It's because we've prayed for that man since she was a child.

We've sowed prayers, asking God, man, you move, you do.

We're trusting you, you work in a way that only you can.

Let's keep going.

Stay alert and persistent.

That's one of the things Paul says.

It's another way of posturing.

I don't know about you, but deer season is coming.

We got any hunters in the room.

Praise the Lord.

Here's what I can tell you about deer season.

You better stay alert because if you've ever been sitting in a blind or a tree stand, man, those deer can move in and out really quietly, and you'll never know they're there.

And if a doe shows up and she starts snorting and blowing, listen, snitches end up in ditches.

That's when you die.

Like I wasn't planning on killing a doe, but if you're about to blow my cover, you're about to become jerky in my freezer.

We don't play that game.

Because we're alert, they're alert, they're looking.

And that's the way Paul has called us to approach prayer, to be alert in our life.

And for some of us, the problem is we aren't alert, we've been lulled to sleep.

It's like we're sitting in that hunting blind on a Saturday afternoon.

You guys know that feeling.

The sun starts shining through there, start feeling warm.

Those eyelids get a little heavier.

Yeah.

And you just get lulled to sleep.

You don't even know what you just missed out on, man.

Probably that big 12-point buck you were waiting for just walked in front of you while you were asleep.

You missed it that fast.

And we do the same thing spiritually.

We let the enemy so many times we think the enemy's coming out to attack us.

I think sometimes the enemies come out with a blanket and a rocking chair, and he's just trying to get us lulled asleep.

So we'll quit paying attention and not be alert to what he's doing.

We're just looking for the front side punch in the face.

And sometimes he's showing up trying to make us comfortable and rock us to sleep.

And Paul's saying one of the things we have to keep in our life is an attitude of alertness, of being prepared in every moment.

And prayer is the same way for us.

We can't get too comfortable.

We can't get good enough.

Prayer is a repeated practice in our life.

That's what Paul is getting at to stay alert and hit repeat.

Stay alert and hit repeat.

That prayer is a repeated practice.

You want to know how to see God do something in prayer?

Learn to repeat the process over and over and over again.

Here's what I can tell you in today's world: persistence is a lost art.

We're looking for the easy fix.

Give me one pill that will fix everything, and I'll be done with it.

And what Paul is telling us is when it comes to prayer and it comes to walking this thing out with Jesus, that there is no easy pill.

The thing that pays off is persistence.

And for so many of us, we pray once or twice.

God doesn't answer the prayer the way we wanted him to or as fast as we thought he should.

And so we just give up on it.

And the invitation from Paul, the invitation from Jesus is to let prayer be this repetition that we do over and over and over again.

I've had things that I've prayed for for years before God answered that prayer.

Why didn't He just answer it three years ago?

I don't know.

I'm not God.

Sometimes I think what really happens is this you I think persistence pays off with God because all persistence is, is faith in action.

I'm willing to keep praying.

I'm willing to keep believing for something that even though I don't see it, I'm going to keep knocking on the door until God does it for me.

And he's moved by a faith that just won't give up.

If there's anything good that God put inside of me, I think it's that he's made me a little stubborn and hard-headed because I just don't know when to quit.

I had a boss one time that I worked for, and she said, You are the most stubborn person I know.

And I said, Thank you.

I don't think she took it the way that I meant it, but I was like, I get a lot of good things done for you because I'm so stubborn.

Because I don't give up easy.

Because I'm willing to keep going when other people want to quit.

And I think there is a faith that God honors when we are persistent in pursuing Him.

Yeah, but I don't see Him moving quite yet.

Okay, keep knocking on the door.

Every mob in the room that has a little kid, you know.

The moment you go to the bathroom.

Mom.

Mom.

Mom.

Fingers through the bottom of the door.

Mom.

Mom.

She starts sliding things under the door to you.

Eventually you go.

What do you want?

Persistence pays off.

It's the same with our Father.

There's something that happens when we persistently go to Jesus.

When we persistently go to the Father and say, hey Dad, I need you.

I need you.

I need your help.

I'm still coming.

Remember me.

I'm still here.

That level of faith is a thing that God begins to honor and move and work in our life as we do those things.

He says to pray for all believers everywhere.

See, the posture and the attitude of prayer is this because faith is meant to be lived in a community.

I need somebody to hear me really loudly and really clearly, because here's what I see on social media all the time.

You can't be a person of faith who tears down the church.

Because the church is the bride of Christ.

And the world is getting all kinds of people that are hit sensations that are trying to do all they can to tear down the church and destroy it, but you can't destroy what Jesus is in love with.

I don't know about you, but if you went after my wife, you and me are gonna have problems.

Because that's my bride.

And so many people in this world want to tear down what Jesus is trying to build up.

Faith is meant to live in community together.

I hear people tell me all the time, I don't need a church.

I got Jesus, I got a Bible.

My response, you should read the Bible.

Because you wouldn't come to that conclusion if you read it.

We're gonna see it right here, right now.

I mean, Paul said, pray for all believers everywhere.

So if I'm going to pray for somebody, that would require that I'm around other people.

You want to love one another, it would require me to be around some people that are not only that I have to love, but that are kind of hard to love.

There's no room in scripture for somebody that says, I don't really need the church.

I got Jesus, I got a Bible.

It's not scriptural, it's not true.

In fact, I believe it's a lie that the enemy has built to destroy the church that Jesus is trying to build up.

And I think Paul makes it plainly clear here because he said, Pray for all the believers.

Let me ask you, who is at the center of your prayer life the most?

You or other people?

And I don't say that to make you feel guilty.

I just say it because sometimes we treat our prayer life like it's a personal genie in a bottle for me to get what I want from God.

But something radical begins to change inside of me when my prayer life becomes less about me and more about the people around me.

Because it honors what Paul said.

It's a posture of my life that suddenly makes the world bigger than me and causes me to love and have compassion and care for people that I want to love and care for.

Even if sometimes we frustrate each other, we still do it.

Why?

Because we're, I'm telling you, the more you pray for somebody, the harder it is to be mad at them.

If you're struggling in your marriage right now, other than learning to say, I'm sorry, pray for your spouse.

Because I'm telling you, the more I have prayed for somebody, the harder it is for me to be mad at them.

The more I pray, God help me love this person the way you love them, suddenly something crazy starts happening.

My mind and my heart begin to change, and I start falling in love with this person that I'm struggling to love.

Why?

Because as we pray for other people, God begins to shape our hearts and minds and change us.

And so prayer is meant to be a means to care for others.

Prayer is a means to care for others.

You want to know why every service we have a moment where they come back up with the worship team and we have the prayer team come down here?

Because we're supposed to pray for other believers.

Church is in a box, we check.

It's a moment where we come in, we experience Jesus, we lift one another up when we're struggling, because there may be another day when I'm struggling and I need somebody to lift me up.

And so we just lay aside our pride, we don't worry about what people think, and we come and pray for each other and watch God work when we do.

That's why we do that.

That's why we will always invite these moments.

And so we should learn to do the same.

The last thing Paul prays for, it's a crazy thing.

He prays for bold living.

I think for many of us, the reason our prayer life and our faith struggle is because we don't pray bold prayers anymore.

Prayer gives us power to live boldly.

If we're gonna be honest, most of our prayers is asking God to get us out of a problem and make our life more comfortable.

But did you notice what Paul did not ask people to pray for?

Paul was in prison, and this ain't like our prison.

Like this is basically like a sewer that he's chained into.

It smells bad, it's dingy, it's damp.

He's probably not getting fed unless somebody's bringing him food.

And if I was Paul, let's just be honest.

I'd say, pray that God gets me out of this prison.

I don't like being here.

Paul does not ask them to pray that God would get him out.

Paul prays this.

Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan.

I'm in chains now, still preaching this message, and pray that I will speak boldly for him as I should.

It's wild to me.

Paul does not ask them to pray that God would get him out of prison.

Paul prays that God would make him bold in the situation that he's in so he can reach people for Jesus.

I'm gonna tell you, one of the biggest mistakes we make is all we pray for is asking God to make our life more comfortable.

And if we haven't figured this out by now, the enemy to your faith in your life is comfort.

And maybe we ask God to get us out of situations that God has put us into because there's something He's want to teach, or there's people He's wanting us to reach.

Or there's something He's wanting to show us that He can do.

One of the hardest seasons of my life was three years of medical issues of praying for God to heal me and not seeing Him move.

But I'm telling you, that three years of my life shaped me for an ability to do what I'm doing today because it forged a hard strength inside of me that realized I don't have to be movable by my situations, that God will move with me through my situations.

Maybe God has placed you in a spot where your marriage is struggling and you keep asking God to fix your spouse, but maybe you need to ask him to fix yourself first.

Maybe you're in a spot where it's like, man, I'm just praying for for God to move on my kids, and why aren't you saving them yet?

And maybe he's trying to position you in a space and place where somewhere along the way he can teach you that his strength is bigger than anything you ever thought, and nobody is so far that he can't save and reach them.

And yeah, they may have another branch or two to hit, or they may have to hit the ground, but then watch what the love and grace of God can do as you walk out of that situation with him.

For some of us, we need to learn what it's like to pray old prayers, not comfortable prayers.

That's been one of the things I've prayed for and I've taught in my life in a real way.

I remember our son was getting ready to be a freshman in high school, and we were moving from a church in Nebraska to a church in Texas.

16, or he was 14 years old.

And I remember he was not ready to move.

He was going into high school, he had his friend circle, he was not ready to move.

He didn't like it.

It was evident that he didn't like it.

Y'all know what I'm talking about.

And I remember in the middle of that move, I looked at my son and I told him, I said, We're one of the reasons I believe God is doing this is because we're showing you what it's like to follow Jesus even when it's uncomfortable and inconvenient.

And I'm trusting that what we're doing today as a 14-year-old that you hate is planting seeds for something one day down the road.

And you'll learn when Jesus asks you to do something you're not comfortable with, you will remember this moment and do the hard thing instead of pursue comfort.

Fast forward 12 years this past winter.

24, no, 10 years, sorry.

10 years.

My son called me up.

He said, Dan, I need to apologize to you.

I remember when we made that move.

I remember how much I hated it.

I remembered how mad I was at you.

And then he said, Thank you.

Thank you for doing the hard thing and for modeling for me what it's like to follow Jesus, even when it costs something.

Took a decade.

Sometimes, as parents, as spiritual parents, as people who have influence, we feel like often we're planting seeds that we wonder if we'll ever see fruit for.

That's the beauty of prayer.

I'm not in charge of the fruit.

He is.

My job is to just keep praying that God would move.

That God would stir our son's heart.

That God would work through something and work it out in a way that I didn't understand.

And I'm here to tell you today the key for victory in your life begins and ends with prayer.

Period.

Learning what it's like to posture ourselves in a place of prayer and position ourselves so that God could move.

And maybe that posturing for you starts today by posturing your life in a place where you say, I'm ready to surrender to Jesus.

Maybe you've never made that decision to surrender your life to Jesus before.

Can I tell you the perfect place to start a posture of prayer in our life is to just surrender all that we have to Jesus and give him a shot.

So here's what I want to do with every head bowed and every eye closed, before we stand, if you're here in this place, maybe you have never surrendered your life to Jesus before.

Maybe you have never prayed that prayer.

And today's the day the Holy Spirit's tugging in your heart, tugging on your soul.

Really calling you in to make the greatest decision you could ever make, and that's to just surrender your life to Jesus and ask him to be the Lord and Savior of your life.

If that's you and you've never prayed that prayer, and today you want to surrender your life to him, would you just slip your hand up so that I could pray with you this morning?

I see your hand.

Anybody else?

I want to do something really big and brave, if you would.

I see your hand back there too.

If you slipped your hand up, could I get you to do something wild and crazy?

And just take a step and come up here and let me pray with you.

I know we haven't normally done it like this, but there's just something inside of me that I think there's something that God honors as we take bold steps of faith.

And so if you raised your hand and that's you and you want to say yes to Jesus, would you just come up here and let me pray with you for a minute.

Okay, that's all right.

Here's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna pray a prayer.

I'm gonna invite all of you to pray with me.

And then after service, if you would, I've got my friend named John here.

Or me.

Come find one of us if you prayed that prayer, if you raised your hand.

We've got, for us, we're trying to find ways to keep help people growing in that decision.

We've got a few gifts that we want to give to you that helps you know where do I go from here now that I've surrendered my life to Jesus.

And so we just want to help you do that today, if we can.

So can we all pray together?

Just join with me, say, dear Jesus, I need to surrender my life to you.

Come forgive me of my sins.

Make me brand new.

I put you in charge of my life and surrender all of me for all of you.

Help me to love you.

Help me to live for you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

If you prayed that prayer, come find me, come find John after service, get those gifts that we have for you.

We just want to help resource you so you can keep growing.

It's not uh any more than that.

Can we stand all across this place?

Our prayer team is gonna come down today.

And to me, the best sermon is not a sermon that we listen to, it is a sermon that we respond to.

And so if you're here today as we sing this song of worship, if you need prayer for anything, big, small, in between, whatever it is, my invitation to you, if I could beg you, I would beg you, is don't walk out of here carrying that same weight that you feel right now.

Come find one of my friends down here.

As we sing, come down.

If you don't want to share with them, cool.

Just, hey, pray for me.

That's fine too.

And put this into practice.

Posture yourself in a space where you're willing to be vulnerable, you're willing to swallow your pride or forget what other people might think, and come down and trust God in this moment to move in your life.

If that's you, as they begin to sing and you need prayer, come down.

Let somebody pray with you as we worship together.